What's Computer Science All About?

In the 21st century, and especially during this pandemic, our ability to connect with others virtually has saved us from feeling completely isolated while being quarantined. We can use video chat, text, email, and social media to stay in touch with our friends and family. We can read the news on our phones, tablets, and laptops to know what is going on in the world.

This is thanks to decades of contributions from computer scientists who have written and improved upon code to bring us many of the technologies we rely on today, such as Zoom, Google Drive, and Netflix. But what exactly is code?

Coding is defined as a way of writing instructions for computers that bridges the gap between how humans like to express themselves and how computers actually work. You might be asking yourself, what is this gap? Well, computers understand binary, a language that only uses 0s and 1s.

As humans, we communicate in languages which the computer cannot understand. If I tell the computer, "please type the word hello," the computer will not actually type "hello." However, code is a language that humans can not only learn to comprehend but also use to tell the computer instructions that it will be able to follow.

There are a variety of coding languages, too! Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, coded in a language called BASIC; today, some popular languages are C++, Python, and JavaScript, and you can learn them for yourself!

Humans can interact with the computer by writing code, or instructions, that instruct the computer to complete a certain task.

For instance, in the language called C, the computer could write "Hello!" if the user told the computer: printf("Hello!"). As humans, we may think of the word print and be reminded of a physical printer (which would print words or images on a piece of paper). In this case, "printf" is a function that tells the computer to print onto the screen. What will the computer print on the screen? The computer will print what the user has typed within the quotations. If I wrote, printf("I like summer!"), what would the computer print onto the screen?

Code is fascinating, but many humans are still able to make their computers perform tasks without knowing any computer science! This is because, on our phones, tablets, and computers, we often interact with a graphical user interface, which means that we interact with our computers through visual indicators, such as icons.

For example, if I wanted to reload this webpage, I might click the refresh icon at the top of my browser window. This icon looks like a circular arrow, which indicates to me that clicking the arrow will refresh the browser. But behind the scenes, someone has written code to tell the computer that when I click the arrow it should refresh the page! If I want to text someone on my phone, I press on the speech bubble icon on my screen. If I want to check my email, I click on the mail icon.

Essentially, many humans have written code to enable users to interact with the computer in this way–interpreting icons and selecting the appropriate icon to tell the computer what to do. This makes technology more user friendly, meaning it is easier for more people to engage with software.

In the below image, for example, the person is drawing a plan for their app. The arrows indicate where each button will take the user, but the coder will need to write the instructions (the code!) to tell the phone that each button goes to a specific page. This is a graphical user interface! The user will be able to pick icons without writing the code to actually instruct the computer what to do.

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Are you wondering why all of this is important?

Well, computer science (also known as the study of computers and computing, including their theoretical and algorithmic foundations, hardware and software, and their uses for processing information) is a quickly growing field, mainly because of its ability to impact so many people. Think about how much social media, or even just the introduction of the smartphone, has changed the world we live in! Instead of needing to go to a library for reference books or read physical newspapers, we have access to huge amounts of information right at our fingertips.

Computer scientists have the ability to improve technology in many kinds of fields, such as medicine, entertainment, business, and manufacturing, among many others. The research that computer scientists conduct leads to improvements that continue to change the world.

Hopefully, this was a helpful description of coding, computer science, and why it's all so important in today's world!

If you'd like to get started with code and have no prior experience, my personal recommendation is to use Scratch. This website allows you to create your own programs using pre-made coding blocks that fit together like a puzzle. It's not the same as coding in a regular language, like C++ or Python; instead, it is called a visual programming language. It empowers new coders by allowing you to understand a little bit more about the problem solving you can achieve with code. You can use it to create games, animations, and more; have fun!